How The World Ends
by Torchwood97
Summary: It started with a bang. That's how everything starts, isn't it? This was supposed to be their home. Somehow, creating this school had seemed like a good idea, despite the fact that it was based off of lies and deception.


It started with a bang.

That's how everything starts, isn't it? Why not try to find another word to use: wham, clang, boom, bam... No matter what words you use, it all started the same way.

This was supposed to be their refuge. This was supposed to be their home. Somehow, creating this school had seemed like a good idea, despite the fact that it was based off of lies and deception.

Hadn't they promised to remain together, as friends or otherwise? Hadn't they promised to trust each other, no matter what? They had known what might happen, but they wanted to continue anyway. Everything had gone so well for what seemed like a few moments.

And to think everything went wrong because of love.

Oh yes, it all started with a bang. But it ended with a love.

* * *

><p>Helga walked slowly, quietly; she walked without a purpose. She didn't know exactly where she was going, but she knew her feet, and more ultimately her heart, would take her where she needed to go. Helga trusted her heart. That was always her problem, wasn't it? Trusting too much; trusting too <em>easily.<em>

Her mind was somewhere else- perhaps a thousand miles away. Wherever he was, that's where she really was. Perhaps he knew that, and that was why he was okay with leaving without her. Helga loved him, but she couldn't leave something she had worked so hard for. She couldn't leave the students she loved.

She suddenly knew where she was going, and she thought she should have known all along. Although it had been fifty years since he left, Helga still remembered their place. She hadn't been there since the night everything went wrong.

Somehow, she knew that something would happen- good or bad- when she got there. Being muggle-born had not tarnished her magical ability. That simple fact had always surprised him the most. No matter what he said to her, she loved him. She still loved him today, fifty years after he'd gone.

"There's no use in dwelling on him, Helga," Rowena would say to her. "He's probably already dead." Those words stung.

"How can you say that with no remorse? He was your best friend, was he not?" No, he was not dead. She would have felt it. She would have known.

At last, she arrived at the entrance. Why they decided to build a bathroom around it, she could not remember. It had been so long ago. But here it was: Proof of her love. A constant reminder of what could have been.

Helga murmured the password, but the tunnel did not appear. She tried again, louder this time, but still no hole in the floor revealed itself to her. Confused and entirely frustrated, she yelled it over and over again, as if her life depended on it.

Finally realizing that she was fighting a losing battle, she collapsed onto the cold stone floor, sobbing with fifty years worth of tears. How could he leave her, and make it entirely impossible to return to the one place to bring her happiness? She had long ago accepted that he was not a particularly _good _person, but this? This was cruel. Something she never expected of him.

Helga rolled to her back, staring at the stained-glass windows that made up the ceiling.

"Why did you leave me?" She whispered to the dark.

Her reply, though she did not know who made it, came in the form of a strange hissing noise. She knew that noise. Suddenly filled with hope, she rose to her feet and turned to the sinks once more. They were opening, she realized somewhere in the back of her mind. The rest of her attention was on something else.

There he was, magnificent and beautiful. He looked the same as he did the day he left. Young; handsome; dressed in his dark green robes.

"Is it really you?" Helga didn't even need to ask that question, because she knew the answer. She had known the answer possibly ever since the day he was gone.

And she knew now by the way he looked. Slightly transparent and looking as though he hadn't aged a day in the last fifty years. It was only now, though, that the full truth hit her: He was dead. He had died the day he left. Perhaps he had even died as he was leaving the school grounds. Helga had felt it, but she could not face the truth- she couldn't say it to anyone. It would be too much.

"Yes, it is me," He spoke in his deep voice.

"Why has it taken you so long? I've waited so... so long..." She fell to the ground again, curled in a little ball.

"My love, I could not get back to you until now," He said sadly. "But now we can be together."

"You are dead," She whispered, her arms wrapped around herself. "We cannot be together fully."

"I see you are dressed in the wedding dress I had made," He stated calmly, as though he had not heard her.

Helga looked at her body, noticing the dress she had put on. The long sleeves were made of black lace, whirling into the shapes of snakes and travelling up and down her arms. The tight-fitting bodice was encrusted with emeralds, and the huge skirt was made of dark green silk, also covered in black lace. The green and black were not traditional wedding dress colours, but she didn't very much care for tradition anymore.

"Am I going to die here?" She looked at him without fear, something he had always admired about her.

"I just called the basilisk up. You, being a muggle-born, will be killed instantly if you do not leave now. If you choose not to run, we will be together. Is that not what you want?"

She knew he was trying to manipulate her, but she had long since decided her fate. This would not be his doing, even if he thought it was.

"I was ready to die the day you left me, darling." She said, looking into his green eyes with her piercing sky blue ones. "I am ready to die now as well."

He smiled slightly and walked to where she was on the floor.

"We'll be together soon, Helga," She closed her eyes. "I promise."

Helga knew he had disappeared, and she knew that she had mere seconds. She opened her eyes and turned her head to stare at the opening in the floor. A single tear rolled out of the corner of her eye, falling onto the floor without making a sound.

"I know." [end]


End file.
